Ken Bolton

Three poems

I am sitting in the front yard
the enclosing high walls,
stand of bamboo,
green hose snaking
from the far
corner to the foot of the gum, across the carpet of twisted
fallen leaves
dappling light.

Pola sits, tiny, in the sun—normally
quite a big dog,
but curled, so that I see only
head &
chest—
a profile that looks hilariously innocent
like a deer’s: ‘good’, ‘fond’. The breeze,
perhaps
the best part—plane tree, gum,
vine leaves, bamboo—moves
gently
or storms occasionally about,
quietens. I’ve had
a better time of it than Leopardi
whom I read now
In good health—a number of
problems
worked out
more or less
—questions he asked I never would
... (in this ‘secular’ age).
I have perhaps worked
no ideas out myself, taking them
‘from the shelf’, merely
—as Leopardi
availed himself
of the Ancients.

Who did I raid?
James Schuyler,
Duras,
Bob Mitchum
(”Baby, I just
don’t care”)?
Though more sentimental
than that
or inconsistent.

Pola now lies flat in the sun
in a
depression she must once have dug
—a Siberian husky, her
white fur
gleaming in the light—
though,
before I finish that line,
she has moved from sun to shade. I hear her head
hit the concrete as she flops down, invisible now
on the other side of
this vine.

(clunk)

I am not going to appear in another poem,
she thinks,thank god.

A review I read recently
of Italian Poetry
remarked their tradition
of addressing each other, something British poets, it said,
”rarely did”. British poets, it seemed to me,
rarely addressed anybody
but spoke as if they weren’t being heard,

as if it were impolite
to break any reigning silence —
especially in view of their having
’nothing to say’.

Me, I am given to the utterance in full voice.

(’Ha ha’)

Can I steal anything
from Leopardi?—
a note to myself,
for the future,
or later tonight.

On my left the enormous fallen statue
of the robot
that stood
amusingly
for a year or two
after Craige Andrae
installed it, a bizarre
benign presence
in the garden. Et in Arcadiaego.
You, too?

Fallen,
it seems to parody,selflessly, the Romantic-ruin-&-vista, with
No Care For Its Own Dignity —
as if to say Hey, look at me—I’m making a joke: ‘Look upon my works, o, man’ etcetera.
One leg remains upright, cut off
above
the ‘knee’—
where Cath delved,
looking for the honey the bees had left behind
inside,
&, undermined, Ro-bo
fell some time later.
And has lain there
for a year or so now.
Once or twice we cut the long grass
around him. Beside, an olive tree grows
in a terracotta pot
near the wall—& near the meter the utilities man can never find,
unless we point to it—
& a vine creeps up the wall
that I planted
maybe eight years ago,
making slow progress but adding charm
& outrunning the parti-coloured ivy
that sets out after it
& makes a pleasant, never-used cavern
in the left hand corner of the yard

then the liquid amber (also looking quite classical ...
if Salvator Rosa, or the lost Titian—Death of Peter Martyr—
can be
called classical.
It’s an ‘Australian’ perspective.
If not, maybe,
every Australian’s.
Though most I’m sure, would know what I mean.)
They’d know, too,
it was crepe myrtle.
Why do I always call it
liquid amber? — because of the liquid smoothness
of its trunk,
branches
like the underside of forearms. I love the downhome,
‘American’ perspective
on Europe—old Europe
anything before the nineteenth century—where they refer
to it
as ‘England times’.
I saw a comedian do it once
deliciously &
repeatedly, to stupid, Anglophile
Clive James,
innocently gaining
his assent to the view
that England’s time had passed.
‘My Time
After A While’ —
the great Buddy Guy tune. Am I
that distracted?
I wonder if this poem
(my poem)
will once again attack England—
& why?

The phone rings—but every time I go to answer it
Anna
at the other end of the house
gets there first. Which is great—I getregular breaks
but no distractions. Cath is at work—or out to lunch
with her friend George (Georgina).

The boys are in England.

I sent them photos,
once,
of this bougainvillea —
in full flower. Its green covers the salmon-pink
of the wall, beyond the delicious
lemon-cream trunk
of the gum—
that ascends
angled skyward, vast & smooth, spotted, in just
a few places, by bits of bark that hang on—
flecks of grey-pink still clinging
to it—
& that can remind though they don’t today,
of the occasional
large pale slug
(that I see, about every three—or five?—years, somewhere)
as they spot the trunk

(’Leopard’.)

Is the colour puce? A word I associate
with ecclesiasticism somehow
(Ronald Firbank, a pulp novel I read
as a teenager
—The Odour of Sanctity?)
& latinity
(& Medievalism—
fleas, after all: the Black Plague, dirt & darkness:

not the full sunny glare of classicism
—by which I mean,
what?
Poussin?
Heaven Knows, Mr Allison—
what do you mean?
That old joke. (That old
film.)
Paddo comes in, Anna’s boyfriend, yells How’s it going?
greets the
dog,
goes in.
The day before Xmas.

Leopardi would be—a century or
two ago—
shivering in his father’s library,
blanket over his knees, cloak about his shoulders,reading
—something improving or curious—
snow falling outside, maybe.
Here it is mild. I’ll be reading Leopardi,
or John Forbes!—I found his old
essay
on
‘In Memory of My Feelings’,
which I’ll look at tonight.
The moon
—to return to it? or is that Leopardi? is my poem
moonless until just now?—
the moon approaching full.

I like
the moon in daylight—
but, looking about, I can’t see it.
The sky
is cloudless & beautifully blue. The green
of all the trees across the street—
visible from here, above the copse of bamboo—
with the hint
of red & brown
in their leaves—
makes the blue vibrate about them. And, near,
the glowing parallel bars of the white garden seat opposite,
saying
quietly, E. Phillips Fox, divisionism, Bonnard
... other names from Painting
—though, hitherto ,
it had simply been a chair & I
hadn’t noticed.
The light changed? Must have.

Suburban Garden—was written Xmas eve 2004. Another catalogue of unreasonable opinion. Leopardi: congenitally ill and much suffering Italian poet of the absolute & ideal. Actor Robert Mitchum shows up, I don’t know why (to lower the tone?)—twice maybe: he starred in Heaven Knows Mister Allison. Australian painter E. Phillips Fox typically painted finery, flowers, gardens etc in a very high-keyed and dappled light that went some way to ‘making strange’ the subject matter — most famously some women in ornate dresses & with parasols descending steps to board a boat in bright sun. The poem wrongs a great many English poets: I was thinking of circumspect verse favoured by the TLS probably and harking back to opinions I held years ago.

EUROPE

“Neo-classicism? Chiefly I like its bric-à-brac.”
—Paul Keating

Europe!

Time to make a start
onThe ODE TO WINCKELMANN

(Is this an ‘Ode to Winckelmann’?)

“I saw a photo of the monument to you / him — “

“Hi, Joe,” I begin —

searched for it in fact!

I think you’re
unfairly associated
with boredom these days
(the inventor
of Anton Raphael Mengs
& David)

but in other respects
it was insufficient, too

— the monument, the plaque —

Not
boring, as I’ve said —
(Not quite direct enough
Or very antique)

When-I-flew-in
— you’ll have come by boat
not train or, heaven forbid,
airplane —
I caught a bus in to the town
& kept my ‘archaeologist’s’
’eye’ out —
how many
scare quotes will this poem
support —
before collapsing
under the weight of its ‘irony’ so cheap?
Tho
the allegories ‘aboard’ Trieste’s architecture ‘abound’,
inviting it —

dumb, hilariously
— there are some ‘fine figures of girls’
in stone or plaster somewhere representing
the ‘figures’ of
clean & brackish water (!)
— par example.
My
archaeologist’s eye though
spotted only Original Joe’s
a coffee shop. The name in English
tho American
would likely be the intended resonance

not London — & not, Johannes, German.

We’ve been
flying
for 100 years now
& America — which in your day
existed, yes, but as pure horizon
( & for the futuristically
inclined )
(the Wright Brothers ...
democrats ...)
whereas you kept your eye
focused
pretty much
on the past, is that true?.
What do I know?
Would I even like to find out?

You were probably not a democrat.

An Open Letter to you
would seem to set you up as a kind of
Rip Van Winkle figure

hardly fair,
but, ‘inevitable’?
in any case, not interesting

The neo-classical,
tho,
I have some time for
Even nutty old Mengs is sometimes
maladroitly interesting
And David — were you around
for that? — while sometimes drily preposterous

well, often dry, more often preposterous
was terrific,
really, on many occasions

— And I liked the idea of seeing your tomb,
for this reason.

You’re still, you see — if just marginally —

in the cultural DNA or whatever that gets passed down.

Am I any sample ? representative ?
More marginal
by a long shot than you
— a minor poet conscious
of the irony
or ironies
that inhere, around
the practitioner of one marginal form
saluting the
dead, forgotten great of another.

has made for greater restraint
than you meet
elsewhere in Italy
:
Cath & I left Rome
home of the ever-
honking
car horn & imperilled pedestrian
for Austria, &
were amazed & amused:
walk too close to the footpath edge
& cars slowed — in case you meant to cross in front of them —

police cars put their sirens on
But only briefly:

when approaching an intersection, say
— turned it off
when they were through

In Rome, the importance of a
policeman’s
Racing Home For Lunch
‘required’ a siren.

Last night
I saw ‘a very Italian thing’
or so it seemed
& not un-classical, either

though of course,
true to your
role, here,
you could be supposed not to approve

I was walking ice cream in hand between various
small restaurants & pavilions set up on the town docks.
Saturday night I think. A sort of family day had been taking
place all afternoon and evening — blaring pop songs, a semi
professional girl group singing, a hot-air balloon rising and
falling, rising and falling constantly, lots of food on grills
sizzling.
As I passed the enclosed courtyard of one
restaurant I saw some teenage girls somehow milling about.
There were assorted adults among them, but a dominant factor
was these fifteen year old girls, ‘swanning’, threading their way
through and between the others — all walking as on a fashion-
shoot, languidly spinning and turning, crisscrossing the space,
quoting, performing gracefulness and the designated disaffected
pout—and boredom or detachment—high fashion often uses. It
was very odd, because there was no evident audience, unless it
was the no doubt slightly bemused or exasperated parents —
there seemed to be no young men about. Maybe the girls were
‘playing’ — the last form play took before you, too, were free to
escape — like the boys were — family occasions?

It bore a little resemblance to the classical frieze
a la Flaxman or Poussin.
Maybe, Johannes,you’d have liked it?

*

It occurs to me that nothing in
real life resembles more the work of Raymond Roussel
than a truly high fashion parade.

*
The old buildings of Trieste
— nineteenth-century mostly, so they show your influence
but you never saw them — reminded me somehow
of Margaret Dumont : gently, amusingly, pompous —
& a little faded
slightly ‘comic opera’
in fact the Paris Opera
came to mind
though it is a little busy,
& coloured ‘Northern’ & ‘gallic’

Garnier

Trieste was more comfortably confectionery.

The gallery had Von Stuck, Marées & Bocklin

(no Bunny, no Lindsay)

amongst a collection otherwise thoroughly Italian.

The girl group ‘were quite Italian’ —
they emoted
heavily & rhetorically
resembling but in no way suggesting
felt emotion

A little like neo classicism?

Air force jets performed
in the sky —
finally trailing the Italian colours behind them

And on late night television back in my room,
Aerosmith : career highlights & a career salute

this too seemed Italian Aerosmith!
— The best part — in its own terms — was Shakira
doing “Dude Looks Like A Lady”
with great energy

Sort of a ‘dude’ herself
A healthy girl —

*

I might care about you more than any poet in Australia.

A thought.

It’s possible.

(You, Winckelmann — not Shakira.)

More than Paul Keating?

Now there’s a thought.

( I keep thinking to call you ‘Henry’

Henry Winkler

‘The Fonz’ )

Would my caring be any consolation I wonder —

rather idly, I’ll admit — ?

All the paraphernalia
of allegory
is used by the Italians as just
humanizing adornment
symbols no one attempts to believe in, or consider.

Whereas Aerosmith’s lead singer is a symbol

who could hardly ‘argue’ for meaning, except by
more strenuously enacting it

As a professional he really
believes
(it seems)
in being in the business of
standing-for-things

(especially standing-for-them-strenuously)

value-judgements being the concern of those consuming
/using these meanings

a comic strip
of ineffable
banality
to a ten year old .
— He looked like a
bookend —
and another cartoon near to him
whose name
I don’t remember
seemed to be about ineffable banality

& as these concepts were beyond me
at least conceptually
I found this one intriguing
typically two matrons
smothered in furs & pearls & opera glasses
Expressed
Opinions
whose tone was considered ‘risible’
(I guess)

Dad preferred Boofhead
— the true archaic
simplicity

& the action took place on a plane that
paralleled that of the picture

Winckelmann & Lichtenstein
would’ve loved it
Which is great — cause I love you guys!

ha ha

— The artist who drew it could not handle three-quarter views
or foreshortening —

Nadi & Pinko
one of the stores I pass

to get to Divo Antonio Thaumaturgio —
or the temple-fronted cathedral of that saint —
a nutty neo-classical unit, like a bit of de Chirico,
situated, Taj Mahal-like, at the head of what once was
the Grand Canal. The church is massive, but, except
close up, looks too small ... & amusing, & sort of
crooked in relation to things — it needs
a big armchair to sit beside it, and a
Trojan-scaled horse or blow-up castle — companions.

Giorgio would’ve loved it.
Which is great —
“because I love (both you ... “
etc)

Complacency & comfort are Trieste style.

And you say, Winckelmann: “Which is great — because
I love both you guys!”
And I say Point taken,

where is the rigour (in this, this poem) ?

When you visited this place
in
1768
(“All of civilized society in Europe
felt your death” weeks later)
what did you
think?

Did you just like to see the few ideas
‘go thru
their motions’
— elements of classicism, combined,
in standard order?
Like Divo Antonio —

four good pillars, the triangular pediment above,
the right volumes within?

Now the TV screen is filled by an ancient sailing ship

from which is thrown to the Italian viewer
— a
bloke presumably, but what sort of bloke? —

the Bounty

in kit form : hours of fun

After the ad the program continues
a history
of the competition, Miss Italy.
Currently the
50s
as a rule she is never as good looking as
the girls around her
& usually she doesn’t look Italian

Europe — it’s a continent, mate! It is also an idea. Paul Keating was Australian Prime Minister. There are art references—to Winckelmann, Mengs, Jacques-Louis David—but, as the joke is that they are so little thought of now, it would be perverse to explain them here. Margaret Dumont was the central female role in many Marx Brothers films; Garnier is, here, an architect, not a perfume. I was in Trieste—& Dublin, London & China—courtesy of The James Joyce Foundation’s travelling prize. “Bonjour Trieste”—my joke with the title of Francoise Sagan’s novel, Bonjour, Tristesse. “Europe” was written as I bounced to & fro between London, Trieste, London again (& Gabe’s flat there), & thence to China on my way home to Australia.

I come this way
for the ‘S’ bends
Driving alone at
night I feel
like Paul Douglas in a
wordy, moralistic
movie the kind
I loved—still do—
when I was young
these made
adulthood seem so
interestingly full—
of worries,
& heroism:
love, & guilt
& betrayal, unspoken
forgiveness: Paul always
loved her though she was
no good—though she wasn’tso bad—he was no
great shakes himself the
big palooka
besides, he had cancer,
his partner was out
to blackmail him
the business could go downhill
any moment—she’d given up a lot
to marry him. Paul wore
big coats, over big suits, &
sported a muffler he had
dumb, intelligent eyes. I
come home on just
one glass of wine, to play
an obscure record, write
a poem—obscure too probably—
write a letter
& maybe call Cath, in Italy—
on her holiday. Soon to return—
to her palooka, deeply worried
today, about Manet,
deeply worried about nothing—
a palooka in 1992 Australia
in a small yellow Mazda
moving carefully through the
‘S’s

Ken Bolton; photo by Bianca Barling

Ken Bolton: A gay, light-hearted bastard, Ken Bolton cuts a moodily romantic figure within the dun Australian literary landscape, his name inevitably conjuring perhaps that best known image of him, bow-tie askew, grinning cheerfully, at the wheel of his 1958 Jaguar sports car, El Cid. It is this image that also carries in its train the stories of later suffering—the affairs, the women, the bad teeth—and, speaking of teeth, the beautiful poems wrenched from the teeth of despair & written on the wrist of happiness “where happiness happens to like its poems written best” (in his inordinate phrase). (“Inordinate”?—can you use inordinate like that?)

Penguin published an early Selected Poems; more recently Wakefield Press have published Bolton’s ‘Untimely Meditations’ & other poems (1997) and At The Flash & At The Baci (2006) and a monograph on sculptor Michele Nikou.